Mr. Consistent

Have you ever ventured onto Wikipedia to lookup one encyclopedia entry, and end up reading a dozen others as you navigate among (un)related links? Sometimes it’s satisfying to quench idle curiosity by thumbing through interesting topics. The discoverability and broweability of inline links greatly appeals to me, of which you can see evidence in my various posts.

One such blog I frequent as part of my information diet, Lifehacker, uses such a writing style. And today as I hyperlinked my way through How Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret Fixed My Procrastination Problem and a separate related post explaining the method, I was enticed by the ‘don’t break the chain’. The method involves simply tracking your accomplishments on a calendar with a daily satisfying X. Every day you make at least some progress toward your ultimate goal. It’s obvious that what you’re really doing with this method is building a habit, but I loved this quote:

It works because it isn’t the one-shot pushes that get us where we want to go, it is the consistent daily action that builds extraordinary outcomes. You may have heard “inch by inch anything’s a cinch.” Inch by inch does work if you can move an inch every day.

– Jerry Seinfeld

Skipping just a single day makes it easier to get off track. You can recover, but that time is lost. This is the thought with me every single morning on my drive to the gym, and why I am disappointed and angry with myself for any slip. I’m in every day, even during vacations, giving my all (my all isn’t really that much, but that’s not the point). This pattern has led my coach Cody Bobay to nickname me Mr. Consistent. And that’s a name I intend to live up to.